Steven Johnson: Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of InnovationReally intrigued by the title. Fabulously diverse in examples. If you ever felt like a square in round world, this book will make you sing for joy because that's what life is about--growing, moving, evolving.... The book is much stronger for being in Science section and not restricted to business innovation alone.

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Dec 26, 2006

Two Years Ago, A Tsunami, A Heart Breakinga

Late last evening, before I lay to sleep I realized that it was very close to the 10:15 a.m. local time that a freight train of water struck Phi Phi Island, Thailand and rolled through thousands of other coastlines and islands throughout the Indian Ocean.

People ask me about the tsunami to this day. It's not as if I think about the tsunami any more today. That experience and all the people I met in Thailand and Sri Lanka are always part of me.

It wasn't my own near-death experience that got to me, I've had close calls scaling canyons and hurtling through whitewater rapids too.

"Just be here. Sort of like sitting ducks. The mind can feel that way when one enters this unprotected place, like a sitting duck, at the mercy of the moment, fully surrendered, fully offered, without a strategy or a protection or any idea why, just a complete dropping everything, the stuff you're carrying, to the floor, and just here.

This being is more than enough. Then if we stay here, there's a song that starts to sing, a devotional song to Being that starts to sing between us - it is this song about, Ah! You are! I am! You are! I am! How lovely. How everything.

J: The essence of separation is I'm not part of this, I'm not at one with this, I am apart from this.T: It's really difficult to get close.J: It's too late, because we already are, like this, we were born this way. I'm already so close to you it's excruciating if you let yourself notice.T: When I look into your eyes, I feel like I'm looking into Love itself, it's very sweet.J: Me too, in yours... Why let a little horrific trauma get in the way of walking around the world as love, hmmm?

If we meet this world unprotected, our heart gets broken over and over and over. This is actually a gift. You let the world touch you, it shatters you open, and it shatters you open, and it shatters you open. And here you are, shining. After our heart is broken open a thousand times and all of the contents emptied out, there's just this shining left."